Wikileaks posts 1.4GB mystery file

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The furor surrounding Wikileaks, the website which last week released a mass of classified US Military documents about the war in Afghanistan, has taken an interesting twist. A mysterious 1.4GB ‘insurance’ file has been published on the site.

The file, named “insurance.aes256”, is encrypted and, although some groups and individuals are currently attempting to decode it, the contents are so far unknown. The cryptome.org website, which like Wikileaks also publishes leaked documents, has links to a forum thread discussing the mysterious file and sharing information on attempts to decrypt its contents. They may have their work cut out, however, as Julian Assange has a strong knowledge of cryptography, having developed cryptographic software in the past.

The motive for posting the file on the Wikileaks site are unclear at this stage. One theory circulating is that the file contains something potentially embarrassing to the United States, which could be revealed if Wikileaks volunteers posted a passkey or instructions on how to decrypt the file. Such an ‘insurance policy’ might be used as a bargaining chip in case that US authorities attempt to pursue Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with charges in relation to the recent publication of documents on the site.

One theory regarding the contents of the file is that it could contain approximately 15,000 documents that Assange stated were held back from the cache of leaked Afghanistan documents when around 77,000 were released last week. However, the file is considerably greater in size than the original cache of documents, so this seems unlikely.

Read more at Wired. Interested parties can download they mystery file from Wikileaks